William Hughes: “You know, Mr. Speaker, here we go again with another crime bill. And we start off once again by an acrimonious debate…”

“You know, Mr. Speaker, here we go again with another crime bill. And we start off once again by an acrimonious debate over the fact that a lot of Members did not have their amendments made in order. I understand that. We have as much consternation on the Democratic side as the Republican side over that. And I regret that that is the case, because there are too many important issues that we need to debate to be sidetracked by that particular debate. But what really troubles me is not that; what troubles me most is that there are so many Members on this side of the aisle who are friends of mine, who do not want a crime bill, they want the issue. They want the issue in November. That is sad, that is a sad commentary, because the crime problem is too serious to be a political football. But that is what it has become. This is a good bill. It does not have all the provisions that I would like in it. To a lot of Members, the 50 death penalties in there are not enough, they would like to have 50 more. And as the chairman of our full committee has indicated, we could not accommodate some Members but I have always believed in capital punishment and I believe we should reserve it for the most egregious of offenses.”